A Lady of Yesterday
"A LIGHT wind blew from the gates
of the sun," the morning she first
walked down the street of the little Iowa
town. Not a cloud flecked the blue; there
was a humming of happy insects; a smell of
rich and moist loam perfumed the air, and
in the dusk of beeches and of oaks stood the
quiet homes. She paused now and then,
looking in the gardens, or at a group of
children, then passed on, smiling in content.
Her accent was so strange, that the agent
for real estate, whom she visited, asked her,
twice and once again, what it was she said.
"I want," she had repeated smilingly,
"an upland meadow, where clover will
grow, and mignonette."
At the tea-tables that night, there was a
mighty chattering. The brisk village made
a mystery of this lady with the slow step,
the foreign trick of speech, the long black
gown, and the gentle voice. The men,
concealing their curiosity in presence of the
women, gratified it secretly, by sauntering
to the tavern in the evening. There the
keeper and his wife stood ready to convey
any neighborly intelligence.
"Elizabeth Astrado" was written in the
register, -- a name conveying little, unaccom-
panied by title or by place of residence.
"She eats alone," the tavern-keeper's
wife confided to their eager ears, "and asks
for no service. Oh, she's a curiosity!
She's got her story, -- you'll see!"
In a town where every man knew every
other man, and whether or not he paid his
taxes on time, and what his standing was in
church, and all the skeletons of his home, a
stranger alien to their ways disturbed their
peace of mind.
"An upland meadow where clover and
mignonette will grow," she had said, and
such an one she found, and planted thick
with fine white clover and with mignonette.
Then, while the carpenters raised her cabin
at the border of the meadow, near the street,
she passed among the villagers, mingling
with them gently, winning their good-will,
in spite of themselves.
The cabin was of unbarked maple logs,
with four rooms and a rustic portico. Then
all the villagers stared in very truth. They,
living in their trim and ugly little homes,
accounted houses of logs as the misfortune
of their pioneer parents. A shed for wood,
a barn for the Jersey cow, a rustic fence,
tall, with a high swinging gate, completed
the domain. In the front room of the cabin
was a fireplace of rude brick. In the bed-
rooms, cots as bare and hard as a nun's, and
in the kitchen the domestic necessaries;
that was all. The poorest house-holder in
the town would not have confessed to such
scant furnishing. Yet the richest man
might well have hesitated before he sent to
France for hives and hives of bees, as she
did, setting them up along the southern
border of her meadow.
Later there came strong boxes, marked
with many marks of foreign transportation
lines, and the neighbor-gossips, seeing
them, imagined wealth of curious furniture;
but the man who carted them told his wife,
who told her friend, who told her friend,
that every box to the last one was placed in
the dry cemented cellar, and left there in
the dark.
"An' a mighty ridic'lous expense a cellar
like that is, t' put under a house of that
char'cter," said the man to his wife -- who
repeated it to her friend.
"But that ain't all," the carpenter's wife
had said when she heard about it all,
"Hank says there is one little room, not fit
for buttery nor yet fur closit, with a window
high up -- well, you ken see yourself --
an' a strong door. Jus' in passin' th' other
day, when he was there, hangin' some
shelves, he tried it, an' it was locked!"
"Well!" said the women who listened.
However, they were not unfriendly, these
brisk gossips. Two of them, plucking up
tardy courage, did call one afternoon. Their
hostess was out among her bees, crooning to
them, as it seemed, while they lighted all
about her, lit on the flower in her dark hair,
buzzed vivaciously about her snow-white
linen gown, lighted on her long, dark hands.
She came in brightly when she saw her
guests, and placed chairs for them, courte-
ously, steeped them a cup of pale and fra-
grant tea, and served them with little cakes.
Though her manner was so quiet and so
kind, the women were shy before her. She,
turning to one and then the other, asked
questions in her quaint way.
"You have children, have you not?"
Both of them had.
"Ah," she cried, clasping those slender
hands, "but you are very fortunate! Your
little ones, -- what are their ages?"
They told her, she listening smilingly.
"And you nurse your little babes -- you
nurse them at the breast?"
The modest women blushed. They were
not used to speaking with such freedom.
But they confessed they did, not liking arti-
ficial means.
"No," said the lady, looking at them
with a soft light in her eyes, "as you say,
there is nothing like the good mother
Nature. The little ones God sends should
lie at the breast. 'Tis not the milk alone
that they imbibe; it is the breath of life, --
it is the human magnetism, the power, --
how shall I say? Happy the mother who
has a little babe to hold!"
They wanted to ask a question, but they
dared not -- wanted to ask a hundred ques-
tions. But back of the gentleness was a
hauteur, and they were still.
"Tell me," she said, breaking her
reverie, "of what your husbands do. Are
they carpenters? Do they build houses for
men, like the blessed Jesus? Or are they
tillers of the soil? Do they bring fruits out
of this bountiful valley?"
They answered, with a reservation of ap-
proval. "The blessed Jesus!" It sounded
like popery.
She had gone from these brief personal
matters to other things.
"How very strong you people seem," she
had remarked. "Both your men and your
women are large and strong. You should
be, being appointed to subdue a continent.
Men think they choose their destinies, but
indeed, good neighbors, I think not so.
Men are driven by the winds of God's will.
They are as much bidden to build up this
valley, this storehouse for the nations, as
coral insects are bidden to make the reefs
with their own little bodies, dying as they
build. Is it not so?"
"We are the creatures of God's will, I
suppose," said one of her visitors, piously.
She had given them little confidences in
return.
"I make my bread," she said, with child-
ish pride, "pray see if you do not think it
excellent!" And she cut a flaky loaf to dis-
play its whiteness. One guest summoned
the bravado to inquire, --
"Then you are not used to doing house-
work?"
"I?" she said, with a slow smile, "I have
never got used to anything, -- not even liv-
ing." And so she baffled them all, yet won
them.
The weeks went by. Elizabeth Astrado
attended to her bees, milked her cow, fed
her fowls, baked, washed, and cleaned, like
the simple women about her, saving that as
she did it a look of ineffable content lighted
up her face, and she sang for happiness.
Sometimes, amid the ballads that she
hummed, a strain slipped in of some great
melody, which she, singing unaware, as it
were, corrected, shaking her finger in self-
reproval, and returning again to the ballads
and the hymns. Nor was she remiss in
neighborly offices; but if any were ailing,
or had a festivity, she was at hand to assist,
condole, or congratulate, carrying always
some simple gift in her hand, appropriate to
the occasion.
She had her wider charities too, for all
she kept close to her home. When, one
day, a story came to her of a laborer struck
down with heat in putting in a culvert on
the railroad, and gossip said he could not
speak English, she hastened to him, caught
dying words from his lips, whispered a
reply, and then what seemed to be a prayer,
while he held fast her hand, and sank to
coma with wistful eyes upon her face.
Moreover 'twas she who buried him, rais-
ing a cross above his grave, and she who
planted rose-bushes about the mound.
"He spoke like an Italian," said the phy-
sician to her warily.
"And so he was," she had replied.
"A fellow-countryman of yours, no
doubt?"
"Are not all men our countrymen, my
friend?" she said, gently. "What are little
lines drawn in the imagination of men,
dividing territory, that they should divide
our sympathies? The world is my country
-- and yours, I hope. Is it not so?"
Then there had also been a hapless pair of
lovers, shamed before their community, who,
desperate, impoverished, and bewildered at
the war between nature and society, had
been helped by her into a new part of the
world. There had been a widow with many
children, who had found baskets of cooked
food and bundles of well-made clothing on
her step. And as the days passed, with
these pleasant offices, the face of the strange
woman glowed with an ever-increasing con-
tent, and her dark, delicate beauty grew.
John Hartington spent his vacation at
Des Moines, having a laudable desire to
see something of the world before returning
to his native town, with his college honors
fresh upon him. Swiftest of the college
runners was John Hartington, famed for his
leaping too, and measuring widest at the
chest and waist of all the hearty fellows at
the university. His blond curls clustered
above a brow almost as innocent as a
child's; his frank and brave blue eyes, his
free step, his mellow laugh, bespoke the
perfect animal, unharmed by civilization,
unperplexed by the closing century's falla-
cies and passions. The wholesome oak
that spreads its roots deep in the generous
soil, could not be more a part of nature
than he. Conscientious, unimaginative,
direct, sincere, industrious, he was the
ideal man of his kind, and his return to
town caused a flutter among the maidens
which they did not even attempt to conceal.
They told him all the chat, of course, and,
among other things, mentioned the great
sensation of the year, -- the coming of the
woman with her mystery, the purchase of
the sunny upland, the planting it with
clover and with mignonette, the building
of the house of logs, the keeping of the
bees, the barren rooms, the busy, silent
life, the charities, the never-ending wonder
of it all. And then the woman -- kind, yet
different from the rest, with the foreign
trick of tongue, the slow, proud walk, the
delicate, slight hands, the beautiful, beau-
tiful smile, the air as of a creature from
another world.
Hartington, strolling beyond the village
streets, up where the sunset died in daffodil
above the upland, saw the little cot of logs,
and out before it, among blood-red poppies,
the woman of whom he had heard. Her
gown of white gleamed in that eerie radi-
ance, glorified, her sad great eyes bent on
him in magnetic scrutiny. A peace and
plenitude of power came radiating from
her, and reached him where he stood, sud-
denly, and for the first time in his careless
life, struck dumb and awed. She, too,
seemed suddenly abashed at this great bulk
of youthful manhood, innocent and strong.
She gazed on him, and he on her, both
chained with some mysterious enchant-
ment. Yet neither spoke, and he, turning
in bewilderment at last, went back to town,
while she placed one hand on her lips to
keep from calling him. And neither slept
that night, and in the morning when she
went with milking pail and stool out to the
grassy field, there he stood at the bars,
waiting. Again they gazed, like creatures
held in thrall by some magician, till she
held out her hand and said, --
"We must be friends, although we have
not met. Perhaps we ARE old friends.
They say there have been worlds before this
one. I have not seen you in these habili-
ments of flesh and blood, and yet -- we
may be friends?"
John Hartington, used to the thin jests
of the village girls, and all their simple
talk, rose, nevertheless, enlightened as
he was with some strange sympathy with
her, to understand and answer what she
said.
"I think perhaps it may be so. May I
come in beside you in the field? Give me
the pail. I'll milk the cow for you."
She threw her head back and laughed
like a girl from school, and he laughed too,
and they shook hands. Then she sat near
him while he milked, both keeping silence,
save for the p-rring noise he made with his
lips to the patient beast. Being through,
she served him with a cupful of the fra-
grant milk; but he bade her drink first,
then drank himself, and then they laughed
again, as if they both had found something
new and good in life.
Then she, --
"Come see how well my bees are doing."
And they went. She served him with the
lucent syrup of the bees, perfumed with the
mignonette, -- such honey as there never
was before. He sat on the broad doorstep,
near the scarlet poppies, she on the grass,
and then they talked -- was it one golden
hour -- or two? Ah, well, 'twas long
enough for her to learn all of his simple
life, long enough for her to know that he
was victor at the races at the school, that
he could play the pipe, like any shepherd
of the ancient days, and when he went he
asked her if he might return.
"Well," laughed she, "sometimes I am
lonely. Come see me -- in a week."
Yet he was there that day at twilight,
and he brought his silver pipe, and piped
to her under the stars, and she sung ballads
to him, -- songs of Strephon and times
when the hills were young, and flocks were
fairer than they ever be these days.
"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-mor-
row," and still the intercourse, still her
dark loveliness waxing, still the weaving
of the mystic spell, still happiness as primi-
tive and as sweet as ever Eden knew.
Then came a twilight when the sweet
rain fell, and on the heavy air the perfumes
of the fields floated. The woman stood by
the window of the cot, looking out. Tall,
graceful, full of that subtle power which
drew his soul; clothed in white linen, fra-
grant from her fields, with breath freighted
with fresh milk, with eyes of flame, she
was there to be adored. And he, being
man of manliest type, forgot all that might
have checked the words, and poured his
soul out at her feet. She drew herself up
like a queen, but only that she might
look queenlier for his sake, and, bending,
kissed his brow, and whispered back his
vows.
And they were married.
The villagers pitied Hartington.
"She's more than a match for him in
years -- an' in some other ways, as like as
not," they said. "Besides, she ain't much
inclined to mention anything about her
past. 'Twon't bear the tellin' probably."
As for the lovers, they laughed as they
went about their honest tasks, or sat
together arms encircling each at evening,
now under the stars, and now before their
fire of wood. They talked together of their
farm, added a field for winter wheat,
bought other cattle, and some horses, which
they rode out over the rolling prairies side
by side. He never stopped to chat about
the town; she never ventured on the street
without him by her side. Truth to tell,
their neighbors envied them, marvelling
how one could extract a heaven out of
earth, and what such perfect joy could
mean.
Yet, for all their prosperity, not one ad-
dition did they make to that most simple
home. It stood there, with its bare neces-
sities, made beautiful only with their love.
But when the winter was most gone, he
made a little cradle of hard wood, in which
she placed pillows of down, and over which
she hung linen curtains embroidered by her
hand.
In the long evenings, by the flicker of
the fire, they sat together, cheek to cheek,
and looked at this little bed, singing low
songs together.
"This happiness is terrible, my John,"
she said to him one night, -- a wondrous
night, when the eastern wind had flung the
tassels out on all the budding trees of
spring, and the air was throbbing with
awakening life, and balmy puffs of breeze,
and odors of the earth. "And we are grow-
ing young. Do you not think that we are
very young and strong?"
He kissed her on the lips. "I know that
you are beautiful," he said.
"Oh, we have lived at Nature's heart,
you see, my love. The cattle and the
fowls, the honey and the wheat, the cot --
the cradle, John, and you and me! These
things make happiness. They are nature.
But then, you cannot understand. You
have never known the artificial --"
"And you, Elizabeth?"
"John, if you wish, you shall hear all I
have to tell. 'Tis a long, long, weary tale.
Will you hear it now? Believe me, it will
make us sad."
She grasped his arm till he shrank with
pain.
"Tell what you will and when you will,
Elizabeth. Perhaps, some day -- when --"
he pointed to the little crib.
"As you say." And so it dropped.
There came a day when Hartington, sit-
ting upon the portico, where perfumes of
the budding clover came to him, hated the
humming of the happy bees, hated the rust-
ling of the trees, hated the sight of earth.
"The child is dead," the nurse had said,
"as for your wife, perhaps --" but that was
all. Finally he heard the nurse's step
upon the floor.
"Come, "she said, motioning him. And
he had gone, laid cheek against that dying
cheek, whispered his love once more, saw
it returned even then, in those deep eyes,
and laid her back upon her pillow, dead.
He buried her among the mignonette,
levelled the earth, sowed thick the seed
again.
"'Tis as she wished," he said.
With his strong hands he wrenched the
little crib, laid it piece by piece upon their
hearth, and scattered then the sacred ashes
on the wind. Then, with hard-coming
breath, broke open the locked door of that
room which he had never entered, thinking
to find there, perhaps, some sign of that
unguessable life of hers, but found there
only an altar, with votive lamps before the
Blessed Virgin, and lilies faded and fallen
from their stems.
Then down into the cellar went he, to
those boxes, with the foreign marks. And
then, indeed, he found a hint of that dead
life. Gowns of velvet and of silk, such as
princesses might wear, wonders of lace,
yellowed with time, great cloaks of snowy
fur, lustrous robes, jewels of worth, -- a vast
array of brilliant trumpery. Then there
were books in many tongues, with rich old
bindings and illuminated page, and in
them written the dead woman's name, -- a
name of many parts, with titles of impress,
and in the midst of all the name, "Eliza-
beth Astrado," as she said.
And that was all, or if there were more
he might have learned, following trails
that fell within his way, he never learned
it, being content, and thankful that he
had held her for a time within his arms,
and looked in her great soul, which, weary-
ing of life's sad complexities, had sim-
plified itself, and made his love its best
adornment.
-THE END-
Elia W. Peattie's short story: A Lady of Yesterday
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
